


Who wants to live forever

by taurussieben



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Blueberry tries his best, Father-Son Relationship, M/M, Memento Box, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25314613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taurussieben/pseuds/taurussieben
Summary: A long time ago, father had asked dad, what he would put in his memento box to remember him by.But dad had kept his silence.
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Max Lightwood-Bane, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62
Collections: #ficwip 5k





	Who wants to live forever

**Author's Note:**

> This was a thought experiment, and I hope it worked out. I had it laying around in my WIP's for quite some time, and as I had time for the #ficwip5k challenge, I thought, why not finish it off. It is a mix of post-canon tv show (the apartment) and books (Blueberry ;) )
> 
> This was done for the #ficwip5k challenge
> 
> The title is clearly the song of the same name from Queen. A song that has a special place in my heart. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.

But touch my tears with your lips  
Touch my world with your fingertips

And we can have forever  
And we can love forever  
Forever is our today

(Who wants to live forever - Queen)

Maxwell Lightwood inhaled and exhaled before he pushed the apartment door open. The wards welcomed him with a soft caress. A special touch of his head when their dad had put them up. 

So you will always feel home, he had said, and their father at his side had laughed and kissed his temple. He and Raphael, his brother, had gagged. 

Those little signs of affection had defined their relationship. They never ceased. Until they did…

“Dad?” Max called as he crossed over. Nothing moved. He squinted into the semi-darkness; the night was falling. A grey sunset painted deeper shadows and harsher lines.

The wards had alerted him two hours ago. He had added the alert last month. A friendly presence, which could only mean their dad, as Raphael had been with him. And no one else was there to come here anymore. He himself only made the trip once a month to check if everything was as it should be. 

He walked through the entryway to the living room. Maybe he should finally move the glass to the kitchen. It was still resting on the living room table, as it had been for the last twenty years, since—

Max swallowed.

He let his magic filter through the stone and wood and found him. He turned to the master bedroom. There in the middle of it stood a shadow. In form and shape was it Magnus Bane, their dad.

When had he seen him last? Was it Alaska, where they had met by accident? On the track of a coven for rogue vampires, who had gotten themselves stuck in ice snow? Or was it Bangladesh as they had crossed each other in the crowded streets, he, on the hunt of a demon, and Magnus on whatever business he was at the moment? 

Glimpses and pieces were all he had left of their dad. 

“Dad?” he asked again, and the shadow moved. The fading light hit his face and his body, and Magnus Bane looked the same. Dazzling in a tortured way. Still larger than the world he walked on. Max had always admired the grace and certainty Magnus Bane emanated, the power that hummed right under his skin, that sparked in his eyes. He was a warlock with every fiber of his being. 

And yet, here and now, he was also the shadow of a man Max once knew. Harsh lines spiderwebbed around his eyes and his mouth.

“How long has it been?” Magnus asked, his eyes roaming over him, taking in all the changes that had occurred over the last twenty years. There weren’t many, he was a grown warlock, but something was always different. Time didn’t stop for them. 

“Eight years, if you count Bangladesh,” Max answered. 

“Ah, Bangladesh. I remember. Dreadful day, dreadful heat.” He shuddered and smiled. The roguish one, the one that spoke of old times, of old happiness. It never reached his eyes.

“Why are you here?” It sounded harsh to his own ears, and Max winced. But Magnus only blinked, his eyes flickering over his face before they drifted away. To the unmade bed, the watch that rested on the bedside table to the opened curtains. His shoulders dropped.

“Just…checking on something.” His hands moved and Max looked at them. A ring glinted, Magnus twirled it around his fingers. A nervous gesture. 

“How long will you stay?” That got him their dad’s attention.

“Blueberry…I—”

An ugly feeling bubbled under his skin, threatened to boil over. “Fine, then go,” he spat and turned around and walked back into the living room. When the wards had pinged in his mind, he had hoped—for what exactly? Answers? Something more tangible? A family? A dad? He also had lost someone that day. He and Raphael had. Aunt Lizzy had. Uncle Simon had. And yet, one month after the funeral, Magnus Bane had turned around and vanished. Until Alaska.

“Blueberry.” The voice was close. “Look at me.” He didn’t want to, and yet, it had been so long. “I’m sorry.” Max could read it in his eyes and around his mouth. He was sorry, and yet, his gaze also asked for forgiveness and patience. “I—” Magnus started but he closed his mouth and shook his head. He looked lost. Lonely. His hand moved in a short gesture to the empty air and then he let it fall. As if …as if he had wanted to reach out to something. Someone.

“Have you been well?” 

Max nodded.

“Your brother?”

“Reckless, but he has me.”

A shadow of a true smile flickered over his face. “That is good.” Magnus stepped closer, pressing his lips to Max's forehead. “Stay safe.” And in a blink, he was gone. 

Max suppressed a sob. Anger and love mixed within him, spilling along his being into the outside world. With an angry flick of his fingers, he turned all the lights in the apartment on, banishing the uncertainty and the darkness and the creeping shadows.

The glass on the table mocked him. He took it and hurled it against the wall. The sound of it breaking was satisfying. For a second he felt relief, and then regret, and then—

A zip in the air, a flash of light. The glass crackled, shifted, mended itself, became whole again, and then it settled back on the same place on the table again. Max blinked at it.

The wards had reacted. The whole place reeked of magic, hidden until activated. Max looked down at the glass. He put a finger against the crystal glass and moved it an inch. The magic hummed and moved it right back.

He swallowed and sank into the couch. 

What was happening here? What had Magnus done?

The glass had been sitting there for twenty years, since—since their father had closed his eyes to the world forever, with no one but Magnus Bane present. 

Max still had the day seared into his brain. How Alec had put the glass down on the table before going into the institute. How he himself had been called away a minute later to a mission and how his dad had contacted him and his brother late into the night with the news. The curse that had been cast on their father ten years ago had finally run its course. 

Alec had sat in the exact same place before he had stood and moved through the room, to the entryway, put his boots on, and walked out. Max blinked. The paper note. Their father had held a paper note in his hands, folded it once. He had put it on the…table in the entryway. 

Max stood and followed the ghost of their father. Retraced the steps of Alec that morning, through the room, to the hallway. Max stopped at the table and raised his hand. His fingers found a small folded note, thumbing it open. _Good morning beautiful._ It was Magnus’ big scrawl. When he removed his finger, the note righted itself. 

Max licked his lips. A thought crossed his mind, so big and terrifying that it took his breath away. 

Had he—?

Max drummed his fingers on the table in thought, before he returned to the master bedroom. The bed was unmade. On the bedside table rested a book, face down. The laundry basket was flowing over. In the bathroom rested the razor on the side, a few cut hairs still around it. A towel lay on the ground.

He crossed the rooms to the study. The books, the notes their father had used the day before his last all were preserved at the exact place they had been laid down twenty years ago.

The world shifted.

The feeling shivered up his fingertips, over his arms, to his head and his heart, to the core of his magic.

He turned around, searching until he spotted it. The small wooden box their dad used as his memento box. A remembrance to all the important people that had touched Magnus Bane in a special way. A long time ago, it had been a point of argument between his father and his dad. Father in his endless curious nature had wanted to know what Magnus Bane would put in this box to remember him by. And dad had always refused to talk about it. They had stopped talking about it when the curse hit Alec. 

Max took the box down from the shelf and put it on the floor, he kneeled down and carefully opened it. It was all there, the photo, the letters, the jewelry, all the tiny things that could be put away, and still allowed you to make a connection in your memory. But as he had expected, there was nothing of their father

He closed the box and put it back, the box shifting itself in the right position again.

“I understand, dad,” Max said to the empty air. The magic quivered.

Paused in time and space held the whole apartment the essence of Alexander Gideon Lightwood. His research, his weapons, his favorite food, all of it was frozen in the moment of his last breath. 

The apartment was the memento. The one life, the one person, that had touched Magnus Bane the most.

Max exhaled and stood. He always thought he understood grief, especially when it came to Magnus Bane. But now, he knew he couldn’t even start to comprehend what Alec Lightwood had meant to a being that lived and will live countless centuries. 

“I’m sorry, dad.” The magic quivered anew.

Max conjured a small note and wedged it in between the magic, to make sure it would still exist when Magnus returned. And he would, Max was sure, often.

_We miss him too, come to dinner._

“Goodbye, father.” The magic was a gentle caress.

Max smiled. It was time to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> And they lived...well not yet happily but there will be a time...I'm sure.  
> Thanks for reading! If you feel up to it I would love to hear from you!


End file.
